Recently, I was walking near the Summit Train Station, when
I bumped into a neighborhood friend. After a few words of greeting, my
neighbor Ben sighed and remarked that Rosh Hashanah would begin at sundown on
the next day, which was Sunday, September 9. "It is the Jewish New
Year's, and my family always celebrates it in the full Jewish tradition,"
Ben told me.
I was curious about this event. Being a Christian, I
really did not understand much about it, so I asked Ben to tell me more.
"The Jewish New Year differs in some fundamental ways
from the secular New Year," my neighbor said. "The observance,
for example, is far more muted. This is because the Jewish New Year time
is largely a period of introspection that begins with Rosh Hashanah and extends
for ten days until Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This ten-day period
is meant to be a time of stock-taking, of self-reflection."
"It is customary during this time, for example, to seek
out in person those whom we may have offended in the preceding year and ask
forgiveness. So, this period of ten days is a time principally to reflect
on how we are conducting our lives, and specifically how we may have
messed up. Given the scope of that task, sometimes I think ten days is
not nearly enough time!" he said.
I had to say that as a Christian I regularly search for the
same things in my life. and then I ask God to forgive me.
"The ten days beginning on Rosh Hashanah concludes on
Yom Kippur, September 18," my friend continued. "If there is
any day of the year when even the most non-observant, non-believing Jew goes to
Temple, this is it. Anyone my age remembers with pride when in 1965 Sandy
Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers refused to pitch in Game One of the World
Series because it fell on Yom Kippur."
I asked Ben, "Why do virtually all Jews in the
world go to Temple on Yom Kippur? What happens there on that day that is
so compelling?"
"Well," Ben said, "in the broadest sense,
what Jews do in Temple on Yom Kippur is to stand as a community and
publicly confess their sins. The Jewish concept of sin differs in some
important ways from that of other religions. Judaism teaches that humans
are born with free will, and are born morally neutral, with both an inclination
toward goodness, leading to a productive life and being concerned for others
---- but, also an inclination toward evil, the baser instincts and
selfishness. The moral laws of the Torah ---- starting with the Ten
Commandments, but including hundreds of other commandments, are meant to help
steer one's behavior toward the good. To Jews, sinning is like an arrow
missing the target."
My friend continued, "The ways in which individuals can
miss the target during the course of a year are many, and in the Yom Kippur
service we stand all together and recite them out loud. The list we
recite ---- and we do it multiple times ---- runs through the alphabet with
each letter corresponding to a different sin. This does not mean we have
committed only 24 sins (the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet) but that
as the confessing group, we have committed the whole range of sins (from A to
Z), the full gamut of possible human failings. For every target that
could have been missed someone among us has missed it, and sometime in our
lives, we have missed it. So we stand together and say, aloud 'We
have been arrogant, we have betrayed, we have stolen, we have corrupted our own
character, we have corrupted the character of others, we've been deceitful,
we've ridiculed good people, we've made misleading statements.' And every
seven or eight sins or so, we stop and ask God for forgiveness (presumably
we've already asked forgiveness from the people we have actually hurt).
We say, "Forgive all these sins, forgive us, pardon us, grant us
atonement.' And then we continue with the list of sins."
Ben added that this full day at Temple is done while observing
a complete 24-hour fast!
My friend was silent for a few moments. Then he said,
"I like the Yom Kippur ritual because it presupposes that human beings are
fallible, that we all miss the target sometimes, and that with effort, we can
control some of our baser urges and maybe do better next year. I find
reciting the litany of possible failures is a good way to take stock ---- as I
say the list out loud together with the congregation, I often think to myself,
'Yup, did that one. Yeah, did that one, too. Oh, there's one I'm
not guilty of ---- at least not this year.' For me, there are always more
'guiltys' than 'not-guiltys', but it is interesting year to year to see how my
failings either remain constant or shift with circumstances," he said.
We had just reached my street and I wished there was more
time to talk to Ben about the management of sin. As a Christian, I did not
believe that I was born morally neutral ---- it seemed that I was born biased
toward sinning, so I was grateful that someone named Jesus had made a very
great sacrifice to redeem me. But, both Ben and I are in possession of
free will. The problem is that often we don't use our free will
effectively to live as God directs us.
As I walked toward my house, I began comparing these two
very different styles of sin management. As Ben described the Jewish
approach, there is intensity and depth, with sins specifically
named and acknowledged. But it is done formally only once a
year. However, I do assume that Jews are always free to make a
"sin-self-examination" informally at any time.
In my experience as a Presbyterian, I recall that every
Sunday in Worship we formally acknowledge in general terms that we are sinners,
without publicly being specific about the whole range of sins we may have
committed. But, we do this every week. Perhaps we only give
our sinfulness a glancing blow, but we do it frequently.
I began to wonder if there might be some real value in each
approach. Do we Presbyterians need a little more intensity and depth,
while perhaps the Jewish practice would benefit from a little more frequency,
in seriously addressing personal sinfulness? But, one solution does not
fit all people! Each of us must find out our optimal intensity, depth and
frequency to address our inherent tendency to sin.
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult
Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal
growth this fall at CPC.
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